


You're the Dark Lord!?

by whitedandelions



Series: 50 Tomarry/Harrymort Oneshotssss [6]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Love Confessions, M/M, Oblivious Tom Riddle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:15:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24807610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whitedandelions/pseuds/whitedandelions
Summary: Tom’s been by Harry’s side since the very beginning of his quest to slay the Dark Lord, so when Harry finally arrives at the Dark Lord’s hideout, he doesn’t expect Tom to push past him with a relieved sigh and a delayed introduction.
Relationships: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Voldemort
Series: 50 Tomarry/Harrymort Oneshotssss [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1182104
Comments: 31
Kudos: 613





	You're the Dark Lord!?

“Can I get you some tea?”

Harry feels frozen in place as Tom moves past him, obviously at ease judging by his relaxed demeanor. It had only been a few minutes ago that Tom announced just who he is, and those minutes had been long and torturous as Harry tried his best to come to terms with what exactly those words had meant.

“But – “ he flounders as he watches Tom start to dust off the throne in the middle of the room with great prejudice, and Tom turns to face him, holding up a hand. 

“It’s a simple question, Harry. Yes or no?”

There’s a distinct roaring in his ears as he looks at Tom, and he can’t seem to get his mouth to work. Surprisingly, or unsurprisingly since this is still _Tom_ , Tom’s eyes soften and he waves a hand. “Tea sounds good, doesn’t it? I’ll get some brewing.”

“You can’t be the Dark Lord,” he says when the silence lingers. “You’re not _evil_.”

“You don’t know what evil is,” says Tom, instead of responding to the denial in his voice, and something in Harry’s heart shatters as he looks at Tom. 

Tom had been with him since the very beginning. Tom had been the one to seek him out in the muggle world, to offer him a world without the Dursleys. His invitation to Hogwarts had been lost somehow, and Headmaster Dumbledore had been unable to find him.

Tom, a muggleborn seventh-year, had found him by chance, recognizing him at the coffee shop Harry used to work at. It took ages for Tom to convince him to believe he had magic, even following him to his classes to tell him all about Hogwarts. At first, Harry had thought he was a creep, even debating whether to get campus police to throw him out or not. But eventually, Tom had won him over with repeated visits to his coffee shop and most importantly, when he had defended Harry from the Dursleys one notable evening.

He had taken Harry in, and then had shown him all the Wizarding World had to offer by taking him to Diagon Alley. And then to Hogwarts, where Harry had promptly been sorted into Gryffindor with Tom. They had become inseparable then, and when reports of the Dark Lord’s activity started to pop up, Dumbledore had eventually called Harry to his office and explained everything.

Defeating the Dark Lord was his destiny, and Dumbledore believed that him being found in that year had meant he was the chosen one with the ability to make sure the Dark Lord stopped creating trouble ever again.

Which set him off on this quest, aided by Tom, Hermione, and Ron. Hermione and Ron had valiantly stayed behind near the entrance of the Dark Lord’s hideout, and it was only thanks to their sacrifice, that Harry and Tom had made it to the most secret lair of the Dark Lord.

Faced with the knowledge that Tom and he may seriously risk their lives facing off against the Dark Lord, Harry had turned to Tom and…

A surge of embarrassment threatens to overwhelm him and he can’t help it, he has to look away from Tom’s face as it settled in what he had done.

He had _confessed_. As in he had told Tom how much he appreciated him and how much he wanted nothing else but to stay by Tom’s side. Forever.

“That wasn’t part of the plan,” Tom interrupts his thoughts and when Harry looks back at Tom, he’s surprised to see a faint dusting of pink on his cheeks. Just like him earlier, Tom can’t meet his eyes, and the silence between them is poignant as they both stew in embarrassment.

“You never answered my confession,” Harry says, eventually. He had nothing left to lose, after all. As they say, in for a penny, in for a pound and Harry was never one to do things by halves.

Tom looks at him in bewilderment. “Really?” he questions, unable to stop himself. “Is that what really matters here?”

“Yes,” he says, “I can’t be – you really felt nothing for me?”

Tom covers half his face with a hand, his eyes inscrutable as he studies Harry. But there’s red tinging the top of his ears, so bright that Harry can even see them from where he’s standing.

That cheers him, even as the despair of Tom lying about everything threatens to overwhelm him, and he has to stop to tell his heart to stop beating so loudly because as Tom had said, that _wasn’t_ what mattered here.

“Are you going to explain everything?” he asks, and Tom looks grateful for a split second at the change of topic before he nods. 

“Sit,” he says, “And when the tea’s done brewing, I’ll explain everything.”

* * *

They talk for hours. Tom explains everything as promised, and Harry wonders in what world could he ever look at Tom and see him as someone evil.

Because Tom has never been evil to him. He saved him from the Dursleys, from the mundane life of preparing coffee for some people who had never had a kind word for him, from thinking he was _ordinary_ ; Harry could go on forever listing things Tom had done for him.

And maybe Tom’s right. Maybe Harry has no idea what evil is. Maybe he’s looking into evil right now and he doesn’t know it.

So he listens and tries his best to understand what Tom wants him to do.

Tom’s the Dark Lord reincarnated, thanks to some ancient branch of dark magic that Harry doesn’t really understand. He’s broken his souls into six pieces and followed those souls back to life when his own life had been extinguished, reincarnated into a writhing mass of evil. From there, he found the Philosopher’s Stone, and using it, was finally able to come into consciousness and get a normal body.

Realizing then just how fragmented his soul was thanks to the ‘horcruxes’, he had set out to redo his earlier actions, repenting and taking his soul back to its rightful owner. Each horcrux he destroyed, he gained back his humanity, and eventually realized the last piece of his soul was going to be far more difficult to obtain.

So he hatched a plan, and had gone to Hogwarts as a muggleborn, biding his time for a long seven years before he was finally able to put his plan into action.

“And that’s you,” says Tom. “You’re the last piece of my soul.”

Harry swallows down his initial reaction to Tom’s words. It takes him a moment, but he can’t find it in himself to deny it; he’s felt the pull as keenly as Tom had.

“So you’ve done this to every other horcrux? You made them feel the way I have?”

Tom stares at him, “What?”

Harry bites his bottom lip, looking away. He knows he sounds jealous, but he _is_. He had fallen for Tom and it stings to know Tom had went and seduced every other one of his horcruxes. Granted, he should probably be freaking out more about the fact that his soul is Tom’s and is that – is it narcissism to like Tom? Is he just a version of Tom? Is this…soulcest?

“I think you’ve misunderstood something,” says Tom, and Harry whips his head back up, glaring at Tom.

“Am I not allowed to have feelings?” he asks, and Tom stares at him, bewildered. “Or am I just like the other five?”

“You’re _nothing_ like the other five,” says Tom, and when Harry just glares, continues. “That’s why I had to go through all this trouble just to get you back?” He trails off into a question when Harry’s ire doesn’t fade, and he looks so lost that Harry fumes even more. “I don’t know what you’re angry about,” he ends up saying and Harry throws his hands up.

“ _I_ don’t even know what I’m angry about!” he says. 

“Of course,” says Tom, “I mean, there’s a lot for you to be angry about, starting with the fact that I led you on this grand quest to slay the Dark Lord and well, I’m the Dark Lord, but there’s no danger and Hermione and Ron are safe, my minions have taken care of that…”

“Oh,” says Harry, relieved to find that their companions are safe, and is momentarily distracted before he realizes Tom is still looking at him expectantly.

“Did you want to still slay me?” asks Tom.

“No,” he says, after a moment’s pause, and something in Tom’s demeanor relaxes.

“Good,” says Tom, “I wouldn’t have wanted to hurt you.”

“Of course you don’t,” says Harry, “I mean, I am you.”

“What?”

“I guess that’s why you never answered my confession,” continues Harry. “It’ll be like confessing to yourself. You should’ve just told me before I went and fallen in love with you.”

“Fallen in love with…” repeats Tom, slowly, his eyes wide. The words finally register as Harry realizes what he’s said and his cheeks get even hotter. He hadn’t ever wanted Tom to know the depth of his feelings before this – he had settled for just telling Tom he wanted to stay by his side, not that he’s irrevocably in _love_ with him. But well, he’s already said it, and as Tom had explained, Harry _is_ Tom so the chances were Tom had already known so…

“Harry, what do you think a horcrux is?”

“How am I supposed to know what it is?” he retorts. “I’ve never seen one. I didn’t even know what magic was before you came and found me a year ago! All I know is that it’s…me?”

Tom waves a hand, holograms of objects floating around them. There’s a book, various kinds of jewelry, and whatnot, but all Harry can focus on is Tom’s face of exasperation.

“They’re objects,” says Harry, “but I’m not one?”

“I _know_ ,” says Tom, his voice full of conviction. “That’s why it was so troublesome to come and collect you.”

“I don’t really understand,” says Harry.

“There are texts upon texts of how to create a horcrux,” explains Tom. “And only one sentence about how to truly destroy one without destroying its contents. And that’s to repent. It worked for the other six. For you, it became trickier. Because you are _alive_ , and I cannot repent for your death when I did not kill you.”

“So you’re going to kill me?” he asks, and Tom lets out a noise of frustration. Harry can’t help the little bubble of elation at that, because to be honest, he never felt a bit of fear at the thought because he _knows_ Tom wouldn’t kill him – he had confessed earlier that he didn’t even want to hurt Harry, let alone kill him.

“Why would I kill you when I’m trying to atone for my past actions?”

“I know,” says Harry, nodding eagerly. “You can’t hope to kill me with how you feel about me.”

“How I feel,” repeats Tom and he honest to god lets out a long-suffering sigh, actually covering his face in peak annoyance. “Are you not afraid of me? I’ve told you just what kind of evil deeds the Dark Lord has committed.”

“But you’ve repented,” said Harry, “You’re _atoning_ , so you can’t possibly be evil any longer.”

“That’s really not how it works,” says Tom.

“So tell me, how does it work? How are you supposed to take your soul out of me?”

“I have theories,” says Tom, “But mostly conjecture. Horcruxes aren’t supposed to be in living beings.”

“You mean you basically have no idea,” says Harry, and Tom frowns at him, eyes narrowed in annoyance.

“I do know what I’m doing,” says Tom, “I’ve been thinking about this for seven years. The plan is to grant you the status of killing a Dark Lord.”

“Killing?” he squeaks out, “No! I don’t want to _kill_ you! Did you not understand me earlier? I love you!”

“You can’t – “ says Tom, and this time, there’s no hiding the red in his ears and the pink in his cheeks, and he’s so flustered that Harry can’t even blink because he doesn’t want to miss a second of this. “You can’t love me, I’m – you – I…”

“I do,” says Harry, as solemnly as he can. “I don’t care if you were the Dark Lord in the past. I don’t care if you think you’re evil and need to be killed to prove a point. You’re different now, and you’re still the person I’ve fallen in love with.”

“You’re not actually going to kill me,” Tom settles for eventually. Harry had apparently pushed Tom too far, because it seems as if Tom has just decided to ignore what he said and continue on with the plan that Harry had unknowingly derailed. “It’s just what Dumbledore wants to hear. And the public! They’ll treat you like a hero.”

“I’ve never wanted to be a hero,” says Harry.

“You do!” says Tom, sounding desperate. “Everyone wants to be a hero. And Dumbledore will believe everything you say and the wizarding world will be at peace, enough so that in a few more years when Dumbledore’s finally dead I can come back and accomplish everything and … I wasn’t supposed to say that.”

Harry lets the silence speak for itself, and when Tom can’t take his gaze anymore, he continues. “I just want my soul back, Harry.”

“And giving me the honor of killing you is supposed to give you your soul back?”

“I figured granting your greatest wish would do that,” says Tom. “It’s the closest thing to what I’ve done for the others.”

“Oh,” says Harry, “but I wouldn’t be a very good hero if I just let you have your soul back so you can what…be a Dark Lord in the future?”

“I don’t want to be a Dark Lord,” says Tom, “there are just some archaic laws that need to be changed.”

“Politics,” says Harry, raising an eyebrow. “You’re going to live out Dumbledore just so you can go into politics?”

“He’s never going to let my reforms in,” says Tom, “and yes, I’m immortal and live forever, what’s a few more years’ wait?”

“You know,” says Harry, “If I do become a ‘hero’, wouldn’t the public love me?”

“Yes,” says Tom, sounding eager. He nods, looking satisfied as if he thought his plan was actually going to start working for once. Too bad Harry has no intention of following along with any plan that would separate the two of them.

“And if you just _stayed_ as Tom the muggleborn who is coincidentally part of the group that took care of the ‘Dark Lord’, then wouldn’t you have an easy time of getting into politics?”

There’s a long, long silence, and Harry feels giddy the longer Tom stays quiet. “But you would never go along with this?”

“I think it’ll be far more irresponsible to go along with your plan knowing that you’re going to live forever,” says Harry. “I think it’s more befitting of a hero if I stayed by your side.”

Tom stares at him for a long moment, looking as if he doesn’t believe a single word Harry was saying. But it doesn’t matter, because Harry has one last thing up his sleeve.

“And regarding your soul, Tom…my greatest wish? It isn’t to become a hero…” He let his words trail off as he stands, getting closer to Tom who is reclining on the grand throne that had been cleaned up while the tea had been brewing. The gold of it glimmers but Harry doesn’t care much about that as he approaches Tom, who is now eying him warily. 

They’ve gotten so used to each other this past year that Tom lets him get close even as he stiffens up slightly. And when Harry places his hands on both sides of Tom, Tom surprisingly stays still.

“It’s to stay with you,” says Harry, “for the rest of my life. So when I finally die, you’ll have your soul back and I would’ve _hopefully_ kept you in check long enough to convince you _not_ to do anything evil after my death.”

“I don’t – I don’t want you to die,” says Tom, and he sounds so bewildered, so _shocked_ that he feels this way that Harry takes pity on him.

“I know you don’t,” he says, “because you love me.”

When Tom doesn’t say anything back, too overwhelmed to process what Harry had forcefully spelled out for him, Harry bends down, and gives Tom enough time to move before he can finally do what he’s been planning to do since forever.

When they had been standing out there, if Tom had showed any sign of reciprocating his love, Harry had told himself that after they emerge victorious from the Dark Lord’s hideout, he was going to kiss Tom.

And well, there were some kinks, notably the fact that the battle wasn’t going to be violent at all, but Harry’s still intent on carrying out his plan.

So when Harry finally leans down enough to kiss him, Tom doesn’t move away and Harry’s heart soars when Tom finally kisses him back.

His plan’s a success.

Tom’s is decidedly not, but well, Harry supposes it’s for the best.

**Author's Note:**

> Uh, I really really like writing Tom as this oblivious idiot who has no clue he’s fallen for Harry and it is so goddamn fun to write.
> 
> Anyway, after 500 hours in Animal Crossing I’ve finally decided to actually do other things again so I hope you enjoy this quick oneshot so I can attempt to get my writing back into shape haha.
> 
> Also Nagini was never created in this AU so 6 horcruxes, and not 7 :D


End file.
